U.S. newspaper publishers, who say they are chafing under the market power of Google and Facebook, are calling on Congress to allow them to negotiate collectively with the online giants.
<b><I>NASA Doesn't Need a Social Media Policy, and Neither Do You</I></b><p>You don't need a separate policy governing how your firm's staff will represent you on social media. You already have one.
Social media gained a new level of First Amendment respect on June 19 as the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a North Carolina law that barred registered sex offenders from posting on social networking sites.
The Supreme Court let stand a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision that said issuers of takedown notices aren't liable under the DMCA unless they actually knew that the material did not infringe their copyright, or were willfully blind to that knowledge.
A Texas company has accused Snap Inc. of infringing four patents with systems that allow Snapchat users to scan "Snapcodes" and add friends on the popular social networking app.
<b><i>Companies and Lawyers Should Begin to Learn the Laws of Individual Platforms Before Trying to Apply National and Local Legal Concepts</b></i><p>Since the possibilities offered by social networks and their reach on consumers are unquestionable, companies must remember that important legal consequences exist between an online presence on social media and on a proprietary website. We look at a few key consequences of going "all in" with social platforms below.
The scope of WannaCry changed our perceptions of ransomware attacks. It made it clear that ransomware could reach a broad cross-section of computers worldwide, at essentially the same time.
Foreign rights presales, which since the 1970s have been used by independent Hollywood producers to raise funds to get their movies shot, are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Credit Netflix for giving them a big shove out the door. So what does that mean for Hollywood's deal lawyers? Bigger rights deals — but fewer of them to go around.
Web pages are a treasure-trove of useful information for companies that are able to capture it using Web crawling (or scraping) technology. Yet, for over 20 years, courts have struggled to draw the line between the usefulness of such information and the rights of the content owners and website operators from which that content is derived. Once a niche issue, the increased use of this technology has compounded the disputes related to it.
Chances are that if your company is involved in research and development of new technology there is a standards setting organization exploring the potential standardization of such technology. While there are clear benefits to participation in standards organizations — keeping abreast of industry developments, targeting product development toward standard compliant products, steering research and intellectual property protection into potential areas of future standardization — such participation does not come without certain risks. Whether you are in-house counsel or outside counsel, you may be called upon to advise participants in standard-setting bodies about intellectual property issues or to participate yourself. You may also be asked to review patent policy of the standard-setting body that sets forth the disclosure and notification requirements with respect to patents for that organization. Here are some potential patent pitfalls that can catch the unwary off-guard.
This article discusses the practical and policy reasons for the use of DPAs and NPAs in white-collar criminal investigations, and considers the NDAA's new reporting provision and its relationship with other efforts to enhance transparency in DOJ decision-making.
The DOJ's Criminal Division issued three declinations since the issuance of the revised CEP a year ago. Review of these cases gives insight into DOJ's implementation of the new policy in practice.
The parameters set forth in the DOJ's memorandum have implications not only for the government's evaluation of compliance programs in the context of criminal charging decisions, but also for how defense counsel structure their conference-room advocacy seeking declinations or lesser sanctions in both criminal and civil investigations.
Active reading comprises many daily tasks lawyers engage in, including highlighting, annotating, note taking, comparing and searching texts. It demands more than flipping or turning pages.
